Refuse to be Forgotten // [Embryze]

for what it's worth, I have a slow disease that sucked me dry... I always aim to please
but I nearly died

He felt the fire in the tips of his fingers, down to his toes. His whole body was taut, alive, in a way it hadn’t been in years. There was a very small part of Mace that would forever be frozen, but he felt around it while he slammed his fist against the door. The smooth edges of that icy pit inside took shape, made that part of him known. Mace realized it no longer so painful to think about the arena, about the souls he carried. It was just a part of him, and the rage had let him see that, had given him some clarity. He should have thanked Julian for that.

Instead, when the blonde boy drew back the door, Mace wanted to twist that fist into his arm. It took him a second to drop his hand back to his side, now that he didn’t have a lifeless opponent. His pinky tremble as he uncurled his fingers, forced himself to stand tall. He was not about to be undone by a simple question. Mace knew he should have come long ago, brought Kieran with him so Julian could see that he was anything but a mistake. He was about the only right thing Mace’d ever done. But he hadn’t, and now what he was doing here seemed so much more important, even though not talking was its own sort of betrayal.

He tasted acid as he fought for words. “Shut up,” he breathed out, his heart rate still elevated, strong in his neck. Words were never, ever going to come easily to him, he knew that, but how he wished they would for moments like this one. But no – there had never been a moment like this, not for Mace. He did the dumping, the cheating, the lying. He’d never been on the receiving end before, and it stung like hell.

The trembling was expanding, moving into his palm, up his forearm. He couldn't have that. Lacking anything reasonable to do with his hands, Mace coiled them around his chest, folding his arms around each other like puzzle pieces. It occurred to him that he should ask if it was true, but Julian looked down right haggard, which the boy never did. They hadn't spoken in so long, though, it would have been a more fair question. Instead, Mace looked at him long and hard before asking, "Are you dating Arbor or just fucking him?"

The question took a lot of the electricity out of his rage, slowed his breathing, made him feel empty. Deflated. But he held his ground, just outside of Julian's compartment, always on the periphery of his world.

for what it's worth, I have a slow disease that sucked me dry... I always aim to please
but I nearly died

Julian's words rolled over Mace more gently than he would have expected. He heard them, could see that Julian was upset, but it was all so distant, like it was happening to someone else. Hadn't he said shut up? Wasn't he usually the fuck up in the relationship? Did sex really matter? He held his chest more tightly, felt the sinewy muscles stretch as he breathed slowly in and out, almost rocking himself. He' do a bang up job so far of first yelling at Julian and then removing himself mentally from the conversation. But it all came back into focus when Julian painted an image that was desirable, if it had come up at any other time.

Right now, though, it made Mace sneer. "You about done then?" Mace measured Julian, took in his high cheekbones, his coiled arms, the sea storm of his eyes. And then very slowly he unfurled his arms, put one hand against the door to steady himself, and the other became a fist at his side. "Let's clear up some of this bullshit. I haven't slept with anyone since Ara and that wasn't meaningless. I have a son from it and you know Aranica better than that. I haven't had my dick between anyone in over a year, okay? And I haven't done shit since you and I -" And it wasn't clear to Mace in the moment why his throat swelled shut and words abandoned him. But they were wont to do that.

He looked away, grey eyes conflicted as he fought to get control of his body. He was always fighting for that. He thought more carefully about what he would say next, still looking into the Career's immaculate apartment. "Jealousy," Mace tasted the word, rolled it over his tongue and then shook his head. His gaze settled on Julian once more. "That's an ugly thing. I thought you'd lied to me and were dating Arbor. I guess - do you want to date him?" He was a little further into the room, his feet right on the door frame, and yet he couldn't bring himself to close the distance, to move any closer to Julian while they were both so enraged and hurt.

Mace glanced over his shoulder and then let out a long breath. "You know I'm here instead of being with Ara and Kieran, right?" And to Mace, that meant everything.

for what it's worth, I have a slow disease that sucked me dry... I always aim to please
but I nearly died

The conversation hadn't exactly gone down the way Mace had expected it to. Not that conversations generally did, but he felt completely blindsided by Julian. He'd rocked back on his heels as the shorter victor spewed words at him, gave himself titles and blamed Mace for things that happened over a year before. The anger ebbed as confusion took over. He felt like this one of those conversations he so often had back in Ten where the other person was actually talking about something else other than the immediate matter. That seemed pretty clear; Julian was talking about the past, something that Mace couldn't change. He lifted his wide palm over his face, pinched his temples, ran it through his hair.

And like that, Julian was gone, the echo of his clipped footfalls the only indication that he'd ever been in the room. Mace shut his eyes, squeezed them tight. He should go back to Elon, rouse him and make him go through the latest vids. He should. But he couldn't make himself step back. Instead, he stepped into Julian's apartment.

He'd expected there to be some sort of barrier - which was patently stupid - but after the first step, the next several came much more easily. And then he was running, chasing after Julian's shadow, until he stood outside of another shut door, once again completely flummoxed by the situation. Mace had every right to be indignant, to be angry. How had things gotten so topsy turvy that he was now going to apologize? And apologize for what? He wasn't sorry that he had a son, and he wasn't sorry that Kieran's mother was Aranica. So then, what should he say? He felt that lump in his stomach that Elon told him equated to guilt, but he was pretty sure he hadn't done anything wrong.

Neither had Julian, really. Maybe that's what this was about.

This time instead of knocking, Mace just let his forehead thud against the closed door. He was getting really fucking tired of always being on the outside, just out of reach of whatever it was he needed. He couldn't force the Gamemakers to let Elon win, and that kept him on the periphery. He couldn't force the government to let him go and live in Twelve to raise his son, and so he'd always be a secondary parent. And here he was, separated by glass and wood from his - friend? No, he didn't want Julian to be his friend. He wanted Julian to be more than that.

Mace brought his palms up, stuck them flat against the door on either side of his head. He felt like a prisoner, back to the world, taking the brunt of whatever argument or problem or reaping that came up. It was unfair that he had to be the one to apologize, but he was ready. He needed to stop thinking in terms of what was fair and just in life; it turns out that nothing ever is.

"Julian, please," he said, angling his face towards the frame, his words drifting over the knob and through the crack. He swallowed around the sudden mass in his throat, around the weakening of his vocal chords. "I don't want to have to miss you either."

for what it's worth, I have a slow disease that sucked me dry... I always aim to please
but I nearly died

It was cool against the glass, a welcome respite from the heat of the fight. And it was this noticing, this relief from something cold that made him remember. There was a part of him still frosted over, and he'd forgotten all about it in all the rage, and hurt, and feeling. It was only now that the trembling threatened his fingertips that Mace realized he'd been free of it, even if just for a moment. It was just like Elon had said - his mind could forget, but his body would take awhile to listen.

Mace flexed his fingers as the door opened, stretched them out to their fullest before drawing them back down towards his palms. There was just the slightest twitch when he had them fully extended, just a hint of that scarring. It ran deep, but it would not control him, would not define him. Mace lifted his grey gaze as Julian cracked the door, and tucked his fists behind the small of his back, which forced his posture to straighten.

And how was that they always ended up talking about, or through, Elon? Mace flinched at the mention of all the calls, of all the time Julian had preferred to talk to Elon instead of him. But it's true; he'd had a choice. He could have intercepted a call, or it would have been easy enough to dial back the most recent number. He hadn't done either, hadn't even really been tempted. But it had nothing to do with wanting to be with Julian. He shook his head slowly once, pushed his knuckles into his spine, as though that would force the sentence out. "I should have, and I am real sorry about not calling," he said slowly, and then took a deep breath. His gaze flickered away. "But words, they just ain't good to me."

And then Julian hit the nail on the head. It wasn't usually the actual phrasing that betrayed him (although he'd fallen into that trap, too). It was what was behind them. People wanted truth, wanted what made him tick, and he didn't want to give them that, especially not now that part of him was ice. But as he looked down into Julian's blue eyes, he realized that he was going to have to, if he wanted to keep the other victor around.

Mace shifted his weight, as though he were preparing for a fight. And in some ways, he was, he was just fighting the opponent he'd never win against - himself. "I don't know how to be like this, Julian. I don't know how to think about you without being able to be around you. I don't know how to care about you and not be able to touch you." He took a step forward, and with the next grabbed the door frame and firmly, but gently, drew it far enough open that he could step through. Mace let his hand drop over Julian's, his rough fingertips splaying over the back of his soft hand.

"I don't want you to be the boy I sometimes see in the Capitol, or the friend who sometimes calls. I want you to be my everything." His words, if not the volume of his voice, grew in confidence so that the last fell with more weight than any of the words he'd spoken up to it. Because Mace was finally telling the truth about how he felt.

for what it's worth, I have a slow disease that sucked me dry... I always aim to please
but I nearly died

This conversation was never going to end. It reminded him of one of his earliest reoccurring nightmares, where he could never say the right thing to make time or the conversation move forward. This talk with Julian was like that, except that he didn't want time to go on. He wanted it to stop, right here, with him, so they could always be trying to figure out, so that Mace could always be the brother of Elon. But that's what dreams were for: wishing. And Mace was just about done with wishes. They clearly were a gigantic waste of time. And yet, isn't that what they were talking about? What they wished - what they even hoped - for the future?

Neither of them could promise much, as it turned out. That seemed ironic, but acceptable, to Mace. Their situation didn't exactly lend itself to a happy ending. Mace balled his free hand into a fist, put his knuckles to his temple. He couldn't talk; Julian couldn't be affectionate. What was wrong with them?

"I don't want to be alone neither, but I can't see how this works. You need words. I ain't got 'em. I need - affection, I guess you call it that. How? How can anyone deal with all of that with three weeks or a month every fucking year?" Because he knew it was going to be like that, because there was no way around the district restrictions. It had never bothered him before, and now it chaffed at Mace, made him want to run right into the electrified fences. He couldn't watch his son grow up, couldn't pursue whatever this was with Julian. He was trapped, like the forsaken cows he herded. He was so angry, at the boxes they lived in, at fate, even at Julian for making him feel like this.

And then it all went away. Burned up by a match that was the reminder of his son. He dragged his fist across the top of his short hair, dropped it to his side. And then slowly, he lifted his other hand and took it away from Julian too. After all, the other victor had just said he didn't want that. "Ara is... she's one of us, Julian. It wasn't like we got together and said, hey, a baby sounds like a really fun idea. It just happened. We all got drunk, and you were in the games." Mace paused, his lips flat, eyes distant. "That was the worst. Maybe not worse than this, but fucking close. And we all, back to Arbor, we just got close. I wish you'd been that for that. This year ain't the same at all. And then you came back and I clean forgot about her - don't say that to Ara - I mean I didn't forget her. She's good people, Julian. The best sort, really. And then I saw her at that earthquake clean-up and she told me."

Mace didn't consciously walk by Julian, but now that he was talking, he needed to be doing something else, too. So he walked into Julian's apartment, proceeded to try to burn a circle in the floor. "She told me, and it was like, I don't know. Like that last day in the arena, almost. Everything just stopped and it felt like my life was over. Like what the shit was I going to do with a baby? But then I saw him, just a few days ago, and Ara's so good with him. I made him, Julian, but you gotta understand he's not mine." And Mace stopped his circling just long enough to meet Julian's gaze, his grey eyes awash. "And it kills me."